Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society

de Bouillon, having once possessed the sovereignty of Sedan,
was superior to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who had never
possessed any sovereignty at all; who should give the king his
napkin at dinner, and who might have the honor of assisting at the
toilet of the queen. The question whether the Duke de Beaufort
ought or ought not to enter the council chamber before the Duke de
Nemours, and whether, being there, he ought or ought not to sit
above him, caused a violent quarrel between the two dukes in 1652,
a quarrel which, of course, ended in a duel, and the death of the
Duke de Nemours. The equally grave question, whether a duke should
sign before a marshal was violently disputed between the Duke de
Rohan and one of the marshals of Henry the Fourth, and the king
was obliged to interfere in the matter.

These, of course, are but so many instances of the principle of
etiquette carried to an extravagant length, and simply prove the
danger there is in allowing things of less importance to supersede
or take th